U.S. President Donald Trump signed a 2018 budget bill that includes a $3 million funding increase for the National Endowment for the Arts.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) will see its budget rise to $152.8 million from $149.8 million under a federal budget passed by the U.S. Congress early Friday morning. The funding boost is a major victory for arts groups, especially given that the Trump administration initially sought to eliminate the NEA in a proposed budget. Under the newly signed budget, the National Gallery of Art will see a $1.04 million increase, while the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) also saw a $3 million bump, CNN reports. President Trump initially was expected to sign the $1.3 trillion budget after it passed with bipartisan support through Congress, but in a tweet Friday morning, he indicated he might veto the legislation because it doesn’t include a fully funded border wall or resolve uncertainty around the DACA program. But in a press conference later in the day, the President reversed course again, saying he signed the omnibus budget bill, though he called it a “ridiculous situation” and said he had reservations about the package. The bill will fund the federal government for the remainder of the 2018 fiscal year, which runs until September.